Travel Biography - Week 91.

Arrival and Some Highlights in Sydney.

After an overnight bus journey from Coffs Harbour to Sydney, I finally settled at the City YHA, a converted Victorian office block across the street from Sydney Central Railway Station.

This stop was the final one in Australia before the trans-Pacific flight to Los Angeles. It also marked the end of a nearly four-week journey from Cairns, covering a total of 2,630 km or 1,634 miles.

Sydney Station with YHA City Hostel on the right.

Wall Mural in the Hostel's Dining Room.

Sydney is the largest city in Australia, with Melbourne a close second. Although the capital of New South Wales, it isn't the nation's capital. This honour goes to Canberra, a smaller city south of NSW. As I discovered on foot, Sydney has similar architecture to London. Even Hyde Park, a vertical finger of greenery in the city's heart, is flanked by College Street bordering the east side of the park, and Elizabeth Street on the west side. On the first day after arrival, I walked through Hyde Park, heading north towards the harbour and the Opera House. As I looked towards College Street, I couldn't help believing that it could have easily passed as Kensington Road that flanks the south side of London's Hyde Park.

Sydney's Hyde Park has no dominant pond in the middle as the London equivalent with its Serpentine. Instead, a hexagonal Memorial Fountain dominates the northern half of the park. At the southern end, the Anzak Military Memorial is the main feature, along with the Pool of Reflection just north of the Memorial. A main road, Park Street, bisects the greenery into two halves, north and south, just as West Carriage Drive cuts across the London equivalent, separating Hyde Park to the east of the road from Kensington Gardens to the west. The Anzak Military Memorial housed a small museum where I spent some time before moving on.

These details show how British-based Sydney really is. I have affectionately called Coffs Harbour, "Bracknell-with-Palm-Trees" - to me, Sydney is "London-by-the-Harbour." Fed by the Parramatta River and its tributary, Duck River, Sydney Harbour is the largest natural harbour in the world, followed by Poole Harbour in Dorset, UK. 

Another feature worth mentioning is the Central Station, the first building I looked at after alighting from the Greyhound Bus. It too, has a British characteristic by taking after London Bridge Station on the South Bank of the River Thames. Both consist of the main terminus alongside some through platforms. The terminus at London Bridge Station serves the line to Brighton and the Sussex coast, and the through platforms serve trains coming out of Charing Cross and Cannon Street Stations, both on the north bank of the River Thames, to Dover and other Kent stations. Similarly, the larger terminus at Sydney Central has cross-country trains from Perth, Brisbane, and Cairns feeding into its bay platforms along with Intercity services. The through platforms serve the City Line to the Sydney suburbs. I have used the Intercity and the suburbian trains several times whilst staying in Sydney.

Walking further north, I came to the Harbour. It was a lively, bustling place, convincing me that humans live in Australia after all! And that, after visiting some deserted venues elsewhere. Harbour Station provided a short underground train ride back to the Central Station and beyond, as all trains from here pass through rather than terminate. I also noticed that the "Sydney Underground" have the same trains stopping at its stations as those on the main Intercity lines. Imagine a cross-country mainline express approaching South Kensington Station on the Transport for London District Line, and you get the gist!

Facing north across the harbour, the Harbour Bridge with its four turrets, was on my left, and the Opera House on my right. The Opera House was the first significant building I saw from the bridge when we entered Sydney on the bus from Coffs Harbour. An opportunity to look inside the vast auditorium came later. When I arrived at the Opera House for the first time, its doors were closed, but sitting on the steps leading to the entrance, people, mostly of the younger set, were sitting, as if meditating, or simply soaking in the experience, and creating an air of laid-back tranquillity. Others were strolling casually around, taking everything easy, as the weather on that day was pretty good. And just to complicate matters a little, on the same site are two buildings of identical architecture, but one is larger than the other. The larger one is the Concert Hall. The other is the Opera House proper. Each is built on a platform which juts out into the estuary.

Opera House and Manly Ferry, from Harbour Bridge.  

Harbour Bridge.

Ferries plied the estuary, including the double-bow Manly ferry. This unusual boat was able to sail in both directions without the need to reverse whilst in dock. Other boats offered cruises around the harbour estuary, and apparently, they were enjoying good custom, enhancing their business.

Sydney was my final stop in Australia before taking off for Los Angeles. Although the city was meant to be the climax of Australia, I ranked it below Cairns, perhaps my favourite of all Australian stops for its easy access to the Great Barrier Reef and its tropical setting. As I saw it, Sydney was too much like London, not only in its architecture and street layout but many in its infrastructure reminded me of London. However, In Hyde Park and elsewhere in the city, palm trees flourished. Its abundance of palm trees was the only clue that I wasn't in Britain.

At the Hostel.

Sydney YHA was a different hostel from all the others I attended. It was well patronised by backpackers, mostly international, but some from home too. On one of the upper floors, above my dormitory but below the roof, was the large dining room served by two member's kitchens. On the main wall of the dining room, a mural covered the entire wall. It was a painting of the dining room as if the mural was reflecting the interior of the dining room like a mirror. So realistic the image was!

The rooftop floor boasted a sauna suite, consisting of a sauna cabin and a plunge pool. With an extractor fan whirring above our heads, the heat in the sauna was rather mediocre. By comparison, the suite in the basement of the YMCA building in San Diego might have looked tattier, but the heat delivered was one of the hottest, hence the best sauna cabin I visited outside the UK, along with the poolside sauna at the Technion, in the Israeli city of Haifa.

I visited the rooftop floor sauna three times throughout my stay in Sydney. One was a morning visit. When I was ready to sit inside the cabin, I found it cold inside with both the stove and the fan switched off. I was alone in the suite and therefore looked around. On one side of the exterior and facing the wall, was a starter button. I pressed it, and the heater came on and the fan also started to extract the air. I had to wait for the sauna to reach a temperature that would draw out a sweat, but boosting the rising temperature by splashing warm water from the shower onto the coals speeded up the heat. A short while later, a couple of young men entered the sauna to enjoy the benefits I had to wait for.

As with all the other stops, both in America and Australia, there was a need to shop for groceries. In Sydney, there was a small grocery store a short distance from the hostel entrance, but after trying it out for the first time, I found the choice limited and dearer in price. So I went to search further afield, and I came across a larger store with a greater choice and more reasonable price. In the evenings, the kitchens were busy with members cooking their meals, but I always found a free stove to cook my own meals without infringing on anyone else. On one occasion, I watched an oriental female, either Chinese or Japanese, carry her plate into the dining room. On it was a cooked crab, fully intact with its shell. How she was to tuck into such a meal, beats me, but the sight of the crab didn't stir my appetite!

In all, I stayed in the Sydney area for eleven days and ten nights. However, two days and a night was spent at a privately owned unaffiliated hostel in Katoomba, a town that served as the base of the Blue Mountains National Park. Therefore I needed to vacate the City hostel for that night and ensure that a bed would await me when I return to resume my stay in the city.

When I write a Travel Biography like this one, my attention should remain on travel, the places I have seen and experienced and everything associated with it. But there may be occasions which could arise in circumstances that are beyond control and without any expectation, yet, since such an occasion was directly connected with Travel, I felt the need to include it. It goes to show that no matter what circumstances you or I may find ourselves in, the unexpected happens.

As already mentioned, I had to make arrangements at the hostel reception for the one night away and a safe return. So one morning, the day before departure, just after I had breakfast, I made my way downstairs to the reception hall. There was only one teller, the other two were absent, and she was serving another customer. So, like any decent citizen, I lined up behind the one being served and waited for my turn.

At Darling Harbour, Sydney.

At the Viewing Turret, Harbour Bridge.

Presently, a man in his thirties, smartly dressed in a business suit and tie, suddenly appeared from behind, and instead of standing behind me, he leaned on the counter in front of me and next to the served customer. I paused to see the outcome. In the meantime, I couldn't help thinking how out of place this guy looked, a sore thumb sticking out of a crowd of casually dressed backpackers bringing heartbeat life to this Victorian building.

When the service to the man in front was complete, the satisfied customer left for the exit. Immediately, the businessman moved in front of me, disregarding my presence in his want for quick attention. His ploy would have worked. The assistant looked coyed as if reverence was shown to this smartly dressed fellow. She was about to serve him.

Immediately, I stepped forward and with a loud voice, reminded the assistant that I was next in line. Knowing that I was right, she turned to my attention. The smartly dressed man's face went red with rage, a pathetic sight to behold. He then exploded with explicit, but he was forced to wait while I made sure my bed reservation was guaranteed. She also reserved a bed for me for that night on the YHA Katoomba Book-a-Bed-Ahead scheme. As for his temper, I didn't retaliate or even respond verbally. Sure, with one punch, I could have forced him to swallow his own teeth. But what's the point? Not only would I be thrown out of the hostel, but into the arms of the Law, and I could end up in custody until deportation. No, the price I would have paid for a moment's satisfaction was way too high. Instead, I went back upstairs for a coffee in the dining room to relax and calm down.

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Next Week: A Pareidolia or a Fright? Hiking at Blue Mountains National Park.